A Study on Youth’s Digital Political Participation in Türkiye

Citizens’ existence in the political arena and their active initiatives in the decision-making and policy-making process represent a manifestation of today's understanding of direct democracy. In the historical process, we see that when citizens are able to influence political power or political actors with various tools, methods, and techniques, they are eventually able to make decisions in their favor. Today, however, it can be seen that citizens are staying away from the political field either by their own choice or through state policy. The purpose of this study is to reveal the participation rate and dimension of first-time young voters, who are one of the most important groups of voters, in digitalized politics. While target of the study is constituted by young people that will vote for the first time in the 2023 general elections, the sample chosen for this research includes 646 university students between the ages of 17 and 22, determined by simple measurement, one of the non-probability operating methods from this universe. Research data was obtained by using the quantitative research methods and the questionnaire technique. In this respect, the analysis was performed with the SPSS 22 package program. The study concludes that the participation of young people in digitalized politics is low.